The Tigers are back to one of Scott Harris’ favorite offseason habits: finding a pitcher almost nobody has been talking about and giving him a minor league deal. This time, it’s former Cardinals and Orioles reliever Nick Raquet, who has signed a two-year minor league contract with Detroit, according to Ari Alexander.
The timing makes the move stand out even more. Raquet recently underwent Tommy John surgery, which helps explain why the deal stretches across two years. There’s a good chance he won’t be available to pitch in 2027, so the Tigers are effectively buying time and hoping the depth shows up later.
Raquet’s path to Detroit has been a winding one. A third-round pick by the Nationals in 2017, he remained on their top 30 prospect list from 2018 through 2020.
After the canceled 2020 minor league season, he stepped away from the game, then returned in the independent Atlantic League in 2023 before landing a minor league deal with St. Louis ahead of the 2024 season.
His time in the majors has been brief. Raquet logged two big league innings for the Cardinals in 2025 before being DFA’ed in April and traded to the Orioles for High-A second baseman Brayden Smith. In Baltimore, he pitched 3 2/3 innings, allowed three runs, was DFA’ed again on September 1 and then released.
For the Tigers, the upside is simple enough: stash him now, wait out the rehab, and maybe find a little pitching depth down the line. But this kind of signing has also become familiar in Detroit, where these low-cost, low-profile additions often flash once and then fade back into the background.
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Matthew Boyd also sits in the picture with a mutual option in Chicago, and Gregory Soto remains among the other ex-Tigers worth tracking as the winter approaches. For Detroit, the question is less about nostalgia than fit and price, since recent performance and contract expectations will help determine whether any of these pitchers become realistic targets or simply names that remind the organization how much of its recent pitching history still lives outside the building. [Read more 🡒]